From the time I was a young girl, my faith was something I took seriously. I loved learning about this incredible God of the Bible that loved me in my sin, so much so He sent His own son to take my place in death. I loved reading that He is alive and that He works everything for my good and His glory. And I loved the realization that the pages of Scripture I read were God-breathed and alive, applicable to my day-to-day life. I believed all of it.

Or so I thought.

Then freshman year of college happened. And along with the regular ups and downs that come with freshman year, it was the most stressful year my family had ever experienced. … Read More ➟

Well, the day is finally here – our first anniversary! Year one is officially in the books!

Photo Credit: Love The Renauds

I’ve thought about this day many times thanks to the classic “We Had the Best Year Ever” Anniversary Facebook Posts –an expected post of course if you follow the unspoken Facebook protocol. Which is exactly why I made sure to post something special myself.

But I can’t help but think that many of the thoughts I have about this first year are a lot different than what I thought I would be thinking (that’s a lot of thoughts/thinking in one sentence…my head hurts).

Here are 7 Things about the First Year of Marriage that I didn’t Expect:

When I was in kindergarten I thought I had to show all of my teeth when I smiled for a photo. It didn’t matter what clever technique my mother tried to use, I wasn’t going to grasp the concept of a natural smile. Needless to say, she didn’t have to worry about spending a ton of money on school pictures that year.

But as I got older, I actually became pretty good at smiling. Scratch that. I became great at smiling.

In fact, I became so great at smiling that I eventually decided it had to go hand-in-hand with my Christianity. I believed in God with every fiber of my being, and I knew He saved me. So how couldn’t I smile?

If I wanted others to know this God, they needed to see how happy He made me…right?

No woman dreams of marrying a man that struggles with lust, but the sad truth is a lot of us do. It’s a truth that many “church-grown” women neglect to understand or acknowledge until a serious relationship arises. Sometimes it even takes years into a marriage before it comes to the surface.

But for the large majority of us, we eventually have to confront the reality of our husband’s very real temptation to lust after another woman.

My little brother used to close one eye, hold his thumb and pointer finger about an inch apart from each other up to his open eye and “smush” me. I probably deserved it most of the time.

Isn’t distance perception a funny thing, though? That a nearly 5’9” person can seemingly fit between two tiny fingers?

Big things can seem really small sometimes.

When it comes to present issues in our lives though, doesn’t it seem to feel just the opposite?

Small things seem mammoth.

And most of the time we don’t even realize they are small until we are farther away from them. Then, we glance over our shoulder, hold our thumb and pointer finger an inch a part, and easily “smush” them…. Read More ➟